According to a recent government tour by BBC, the entire Muslim Rohingya villages in Myanmar have been demolished and replaced by police barracks, government buildings and refugee relocation camps.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute which has been analyzing satellite images estimates that at least 40% of Rohingya villages damaged by the 2017 violence have since been completely demolished and now is replaced by Myanmar government’s secure facilities.
Housed for 25,000 returnees (Rohingyas), Hla Poe Kaung transit camp was built on the site of two Rohingya villages Haw Ri Tu Lar and Thar Zay Kone, which nearly a year old where refugees would stay for two months before moving to permanent housing. The camp is in poor condition including shattered communal toilets.
When the BBC reporter, Jonathan Head, asked the camp administrator Soe Shwe Aung why they had destroyed the villages, he denied any had been demolished. But when he pointed out that satellite images showed otherwise, the admin said he had only recently taken the job and was not able to answer.
Myar Zin another Rohingya village was bulldozed to built Kyein Chaung, a relocation camp, which was funded by the Japanese and Indian government as long-term accommodation for returning refugees. The following camp lies close to a newly built massive barracks for the Border Guard Police – a unit of the security forces that seriously abused the Rohingya in 2017.
Outside a few miles from Maungdaw, was Myo Thu Gyi village which once was home of a population of more than 8,000 Rohingyas. Even just after the genocidal campaign of 2017, the larger buildings of that village was intact and the trees surrounded by Rakhine village were present. Currently, there are no trees but a large government and police complex is constructed.
Inn Din, a village where three-quarter of the total population was Muslims . has no trace of the Muslim quarter remains these days. The Rakhine quarter is quiet and peaceful. But once where Rohingya houses used to be, the trees have gone, replaced by barbed-wire fences enclosing an extensive new Border Guard Police barracks. The Rakhine Buddhist residents told the BBC that, they would never accept Muslims living next to them “again.”
Unlike Inn Din, many Rohingya villages are seized and conquered by the Myanmar militaries at present and such circumstances create a dilemma for the returnees as there is no remaining of their hometown or once they used to call home. So what will happen if the Rohingyas return after another possible repatriation attempt? Will they be residing in IDP camps where currently in Sittwe, Rohingyas are living in misery since 2012!
In early September 2017 at the military campaign against Rohingyas, the commander of the Myanmar armed forces General Min Aung Hlaing said they were taking care of what he called “unfinished business” left from 1942 when the fight between Japanese and British forces in Rakhine state lead Rohingyas and Rakhine Buddhists backed opposing sides.
Since the Rohingya exodus the remaining Muslims in Myanmar perhaps only 10% of the original population are now in threat including the returnees.
